


Time Traveler

by BrokenKestral



Series: The Walker of Worlds [2]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: AU, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Loss, Post-Last Battle, Sibling Love, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29109501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrokenKestral/pseuds/BrokenKestral
Summary: Years after the accident, Susan accidentally travels back in time to see her siblings again.
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie & Lucy Pevensie & Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie
Series: The Walker of Worlds [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2135799
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	1. Reaching Back

**Author's Note:**

> AU. So this is a one-shot that takes place within a larger story (one currently floating around in my head). Since you don’t have access to it, it’s a tale where Susan becomes a traveller between worlds after The Last Battle. She still bases herself in the time and place she was meant for, but goes on trips to… everywhere. Equipped by her grief and the wisdom it taught her, she is sent to help people in worlds ranging from Jane Austen to JF’s Ranger’s Apprentice. Possibly even visiting Arwen to comfort her after Aragorn’s death. Her role is somewhat based on that paragraph in The Scarlet Letter, where the letter, the grief and pain and shame it embodies, opens every door to every broken place. Not really the Susan pictured in my other works or in Narnia (travel does change people, as would this calling), it’s definitely an AU. But the idea just hasn’t gone away, and I thought I’d write the one-shot that stood out the most vividly, happening in the first third of the tale. And then The Doorkeeper joined in the tale, and, well, here you are.

Susan blinked. Moments ago she’d had the Doorkeeper on her left, a grandfather clock on her right, and a crack in reality growing larger in front of her. Now—

Now she sat before her mirror. She knew it was hers, with the white and silver frame and the small crack in the upper left curve of the arch. It was her bedroom mirror, nailed into her vanity; she had not looked in it since… since days after her world collapsed. It hadn’t mattered anymore. It didn’t now, and she pushed herself away from the vanity, not caring that her reflection looked worn. She already knew she looked older than her twenty-nine years.* That was not the problem. No, the problem was, why was she back Yhom—in this house?

She glanced around, frowning to see her bed unmade. Yes, it was still her bed. She was seldom in her own place and time. She didn’t sleep in this room often anymore, as she’d let the house out to a family whose father came back from the war missing both legs. As a courtesy to her, they didn’t use this room, keeping it in case she needed it on the rare occasions she was in England, why would it be unmade-

Steps outside the door called her back to herself. She shook out her skirts, gathering her strength. Explaining to a normal English family—a hurting, off-balance English family—how she had entered the house without using the door would not be easy. 

She did not expect easy anymore, not from any part of her life. She marched to the door like a soldier and opened it. 

“Susan!” and oh, Susan froze, for that voice sounded every night in her dreams and never in life. “We’re ready to visit Carla Evans, did you change your mind about… coming…” 

Susan slowly turned her eyes from the wall to further down the hallway, scanning the white wall, white wall and brown floor, and there, in front of the door to the stairs—

They were unchanged, so  _ young _ . Lucy’s eyes were wide, Edmund’s eyebrows furrowed, and Peter stood frozen, his hand holding open the door. He let it go, and it swept closed with a quiet click. 

He stepped past his siblings, shedding his boyish glee like an unsheathed sword and taking up his authority. An instant later the High King stood between Susan and the siblings she’d laid in coffins. 

“Who are you?” he asked, and Susan closed her eyes at his quiet authority. It cut so differently now, no longer bringing rising rebellion. It recalled how much she’d lost. 

“Susan?” Lucy whispered, and Susan opened her eyes, looking at her sister. She couldn’t utter a word.

She did not have to. “Peter, it is Susan,” came Edmund’s low affirmation. “Remember how she looked, that last year in Narnia?” 

Peter’s eyes softened, but he did not move forward. “Are you my sister?” he asked.

“Yes,” Susan choked out. “Yes, Peter, I’m—I’m your sister. I am. Yes.” She couldn’t keep his eyes, couldn’t tell him the truth while looking at him, but she heard his footsteps and then felt his arms around her. He was holding her. She barely remembered this, how this felt. Her head fell onto his shoulder.

She shook and she cried, water running down her nose and cheeks, her entire body trembling. She couldn’t believe it was happening, couldn’t believe he was there, but she also couldn’t question it, couldn’t question a gift like this. She brought her trembling arms around Peter and held him back. Her brother.

She felt arms steal around her waist, another cover her shoulders, and she cried harder. All the worlds she had visited, all the things she had seen, and this was one of the two things she wanted most. This. All her heart had ached for surrounded her now, and all she could do was cry. 

And Peter let her. He had always been strong and kind like that, even when Susan had not seen it, had not been able to accept it. Edmund stroked her hair, Lucy murmured comfort, and Susan did not care where she was, how it happened, nor how much time was passing. She had everything.

But time still passed, heeded or not, and Susan’s three siblings stiffened when they heard the door slam below them . 

“Mum and Dad won’t understand,” Lucy breathed. “Su, can you—are you, can you act like a guest?”

“Dad will see through that in a moment, she’s too much like Mum,” Edmund pointed out. “I’ll run and tell them we’re staying in, that we want to sort out who gets what for the school term. Carla’s got her other two friends, and her parents won’t miss us. Be right back-” and his arm was gone. Susan couldn’t help it, she watched him as he left, and maybe he felt her eyes, because he turned back to smile at her, a quick flash, before he went through the door. Peter took her shoulders as Lucy took her hand, and they led her back into her bedroom. 

“Sit,” Peter said quietly, drawing up a chair from the vanity, first for her and then one from the window for Lucy. He set them right next to the bed, then he sat on it and took both her hands. She looked him in the face. She couldn’t look away; the eyes of her High King were as calm and glorious as she remembered them.

“Did you go back to Narnia?” he asked her quietly. “And you were not able to come back as we did before, as young as we left?”

Susan clenched her hands, forgetting that he held them. He clasped them more tightly, trying to calm her. It worked, enough to let her answer. “No—we can’t go back, remember?” Peter nodded. 

“You’ve been somewhere else?” he asked.

Susan laughed through her tears, and felt Lucy slide her hand up and down Susan’s arm, trying to help. “I’ve been so many places—Peter, I don’t—how old am I here?”

“Twenty,” came a voice from the door, and Susan breathed easier. She needed all three of them close. Edmund was back, coming in to sit next to Peter. “Your birthday was yesterday,” he added. He looked at Peter. “Mum and Dad went, they know we’re not coming. We should have a couple of hours,” he said quietly. Susan barely heard him.

Twenty. She had less than a year, then, before she lost them. Or this Susan did; she at twenty-nine had not even that much. It was likely the Doorkeeper of this time, of her twentieth year, would find her and send her back, back to her tasks—

More tears spilled down her cheeks at the thought, and she flinched. 

“Easy, easy, Su,” said Peter, but Susan couldn’t respond. She had to go back, she knew that, she couldn’t take back her choices, the consequences of who she’d made herself, nor could she even tell herself to ask for it—Aslan’s choices were always better—

But, oh how she wanted to. No matter how many people she helped, how she grew, her heart screamed for what it wanted.

“Susan, breathe,” and that was Edmund speaking right into her ear. She closed her eyes, breathing in, holding it, and breathing out. She had born the heartache of worlds; she could bear this. She opened her eyes, shutting off her heart to stop the tears.

“Susan, don’t,” and that was Lucy’s voice, and Susan automatically looked at her, willing to do whatever she asked. Anything, now, to make up for all the ways she’d refused Lucy so many years before her death. Lucy had both her hands gathered in hers, pulling her to the side, her eyes open and entreating. 

“You are in so much pain,” Edmund said compassionately, knowingly. Susan turned to her other side, to his voice, seeing him kneeling beside her. “Susan, what happened? What broke you so deeply?”

Susan gently freed her hands from Lucy’s—flinching at the hurt look on her face, knowing at twenty Susan had always drawn away—but she needed her hands to wipe away her tears, and she gave them back to Lucy the instant she’d dried them on her dress. Lucy smiled uncertainly, and Susan squeezed her hands. Lucy’s smile grew more peaceful. 

“I’m not twenty,” she replied to Edmund, her voice calm, her emotions contained. “I’m twenty-nine. I have—I have lived most of those years in ways you cannot imagine. Not even you.” She hesitated. “And I’m all alone,” she added with a catch in her voice. She wasn’t sure how else to say it, to tell them they had a year, a year, nothing more. Even the wars lasted longer than that—

“You never befriended Narnia again?” Peter asked, his hands bracing her shoulders. All the broken, aching cries Susan heard in all worlds echoed in his voice. He had lost her before she lost him. For he had loved her, as her King, her brother, her family, a shepherd who couldn’t keep her safe, and she withdrew one hand from Lucy’s to cover his. 

“Not in time,” she answered. The grief aged him, and she added, “but yes, Peter, I did. I do. I am—as much as I can, I am a friend of Narnia.”

“And you are still alone?” Edmund asked, his piercing eyes confused. This was her  _ brother _ , judge and keeper of their hearts, and he could not imagine leaving her alone when she was this broken. But it had been her choice—

“I walk in other places now,” Susan answered, praying he wouldn’t fully understand her answer. There were futures too heavy to be born as foreknowledge. She knew that now, had been warned over and over. She could not tell them everything, just enough to help them understand—“You are not able to follow me.” 

“Is that—is that where our Susan is now?” Lucy asked, fear in her voice.

“I do not know,” Susan answered, for she’d bound her tongue to the truth years ago, knowing only truth can truly comfort grief. “And I know, Lucy, how weak she is now. But she is still stronger than you think, when she has to be. If she is walking where I walked, there are those who will care for her.” She smiled, a small twist at the corner of her mouth as she thought of the Doorkeeper, and of Huan the hound who ran by her side. “Impatiently, perhaps, but they will care for her.” 

“Did you mean to switch places?” Peter asked, and Susan brought her eyes back to him. 

“No. I did not know—I did not know a gift like this would be possible.” She dropped her hand from his, reaching to touch Edmund’s cheek, wrapping her hand around Lucy’s and holding the small, quick fingers. “I will ask what I did not ask then—now—and what I should have asked for years. Forgive me,” she asked, her voice slipping into pleading without her meaning to. She looked to Edmund first, the traitor who knew forgiveness best. “I—forgive me. Please, please, forgive me. For all I betrayed and for every hurt I inflicted, forgive me.”

“Forgiven,” Edmund said, as quick as thought, as certain as judgement. Susan thanked him with a broken smile. He held her gaze for a few moments, saying it again without words, and then Susan looked to Lucy.

“Forgive me?”

“Always,” she said firmly, squeezing Susan’s hand. “Even before you ask. Susan, I’m so glad you’re Aslan’s again.”

Susan smiled, for Lucy knew how those two were always synonymous, how  _ friend of Narnia _ meant  _ Aslan’s,  _ and then forced herself to look at Peter, at the authority and power she had fought most. The one she had forced to condemn her. She could not bring herself to say the words. 

Peter’s hands left her shoulders to hold her face, and her gaze. “Once a Queen of Narnia, always a Queen of Narnia,” he said softly. “I dare not disagree. Welcome back, Queen Susan.”

And the Gentle Queen cried once more. 

They let her, still holding her, till her tears dried. Lucy handed her a handkerchief with a smile, and Susan laughed through the last of the tears. 

“Thank you; I need it more than you do,” she joked, and she heard the indrawn breaths as she referred to a Narnian memory. Her siblings would not be used to that, not from 20-year-old Susan. They were still hurting. She wiped her face and calmed herself. 

“We’d best do at least a bit towards prepping for the school term, so I won’t be a liar,” Edmund said, and Susan breathed out, fighting back even more tears. She’d forgotten how Edmund turned situations to deflect or give attention as a soul desire, how well he read even that need. 

“I’d like to take the painting of Aslan,” Lucy put in. “If none of you want it, that is.”

“Take it,” Peter authorised, smiling. “I’ve still the Bible grandfather gave me, and Ed, you’ve got-

“-the framed speech from our coronation, as well as the oaths we took. James makes fun of it, but I know he’d miss it if it didn’t go back with me.” 

There was a brief silence. “Su, do you want...anything?” Lucy asked. “If you remember this term-”

“The shawl with the Dryads woven in, dancing among the trees,” Susan put in softly, her memory bringing to mind the party she’d worn it to, and the way so many had said she’d looked like a queen. It had hurt, but it had been something to hold on to, when other things gave way. “It’s pretty enough the Susan from here will wear it—and remember.”

“And the painting Eustace gave us? Who would like to bring  _ The Dawn Treader _ with them?” Lucy asked, looking ‘round. 

“I’d like to give it to the Professor, with your permission,” Peter put in. “He’s heard enough about it—and he has a bit more time than the rest of us to sit and look at it. The perks of being old, he calls it.” Another stab that made Susan’s hands shake, another memory of love and loss cutting through her. The gentle murmuring old voice, the wise, twinkling eyes, the odd face—would she see that again too? 

She fought that longing back, telling herself not to be greedy. She’d been given more than many mortals ever received. She had her family, forgiveness spoken and accepted, years after that should have been impossible. She’d been given much. 

For now.

“You should divide up suitcases now too,” she put in suddenly. “What?” she asked as the other turned to look at her. “It makes a difference in how you pack.” 

“That it does,” Edmund said, smiling easily, but Susan didn’t smile back. She could see the hurt in his eyes. 

_ What is it _ ? she asked with a tilted head and upturned palm, and Edmund quickly looked at the ground. And that hurt, more than she expected, that he wouldn’t give her their silent language back, and she looked down.

She looked down at the ground, as he did—in response to being hurt. 

Of course.

Because she, at twenty, would have been gone. She would have left the conversation after a careless remark, and if Edmund spoke to her, if Peter or Lucy did, without words—

She would have pretended not to see. She knew it, she remembered  _ doing _ it, and that—

It had scarred them. 

Edmund would not have wanted to tell her that, to remind her of her sins just after he’d given her forgiveness. But just speaking without words hurt, for their Susan refused to. 

How foolish she had been. 

She reached out for Edmund’s hand, pressing it with another  _ I’m sorry _ , and he flipped his hand over and held her in return. 

“I’ll take the carpetbag,” Lucy spoke up.

“Susan will want the second-biggest suitcase,” Susan said with a twist of her lips.

“Not the biggest?” Edmund teased, and Susan shook her head.

“It has a broken strap. She’d be ashamed to be seen carrying it.” Susan fell quiet, remembering—she’d mended it, in the dark weeks after the funeral, before the Doorkeeper came. She’d packed all she owned in it. Knowing she had to leave, unwilling to leave any of the empty things behind, she’d begged hope to come back and fulfill all the promises they made, even as she knew each promise of fun and purpose would be broken. 

“Ed, you take the biggest then, it’ll hold all of your books.”

“You’ve as many books as I do!”

“Yes, but I won’t be taking them. This last year of study is a bit beyond what I own; I’ll just use the professor’s.”

“That will be fun to lug from the train station,” Edmund grumbled, and frowned when he felt Susan flinch.  _ What? _ he asked, but she shook her head.

“Well, with that settled, we should discuss what’s happening more,” Peter commanded. Susan nodded, withdrawing her hands to link them in her lap. “Susan, do you need us to come—wherever you have been? Could that be why you’re back here?”

Susan’s fingers wrapped around each other, and she watched them turn white. If she could—if she took them with her, they might never die. And she’d have them, with her, helping her, everything would be so much easier—

But her parents would lose them, probably permanently. And the sorrows she had known would be gone. With it would go her calling, her title.  _ There is a time for sorrow, and a time for joy _ . Her time for joy had not come yet. Her heart could beg for it all it wanted; reality and Aslan still said  _ no _ . “No,” she said, bringing all the gentleness she had learned into her voice. 

“No?” Lucy asked. “But why, if you want us there—you do want us there, don’t you?”

Susan ached at that troubled tone, the way Lucy doubted she was wanted. Lucy had reason, after Susan had pushed her away for so long, but Susan  _ hated _ that she had reason. She looked up, noting the brave face, ready to take any answer Susan gave; ready for it to hurt. “I want you there more than I can say, Lucy. I mean it. But what I’m doing—I couldn’t do it when I was twenty, not here, and not in Narnia. I can only do it as I am. It is not a task you can do.”

Lucy considered that. “That makes sense. But if you’re needed  _ there _ , why are you here?”

“I do not know. I meant to walk to another world, one with another King, betrayed by his Queen. I was to counsel him as he grieved. But the door cracked before it could open. As we stood, watching the crack grow larger, everything vanished, and I was before my mirror.” Susan glanced over at it, half-smiling. “I was not even very much surprised. The ones I walk with are… peculiar, and things seldom go to plan.” She hesitated. “Perhaps… one of those companions, the fussiest, grumpiest, most reliable one—has a door in London that leads to his house. Perhaps we should start by going to him?”

* * *

*Susan was twenty-one when she lost her siblings.


	2. The Doorkeeper

“We have a few hours before Mum and Dad get back. How far away does he live?” Peter asked. Susan smiled. Peter was ever practical. 

She wished that didn’t hurt to think. That she didn’t have to remember, with a surge of pain, that the dead weren’t practical. She turned to her response instead.

“He’s… wherever I want him to be. He has the kind of door one can call to oneself, as long as there’s another door of any sort nearby to anchor it. Maybe we should call it forth in the backyard? It can… permanently alter walls if called inside, I think he said.” 

“Then by all means, let’s call it outside,” Edmund responded wryly, standing and offering Susan his arm. She took it, rising with one graceful motion, but halted as he put his hand on her arm. “It is good beyond expectation to have you back,” he said seriously. His whole face was fixed on her, and she read it in a truthfulness that humbled her.

“To  _ know _ you come back. I hoped, but to know it for certain—” and Susan heard the joy beyond words in Lucy’s tone. All for her, for the prodigal who ripped herself away from all of them. 

“Is a gift Aslan-sent,” Peter finished in the silence. “Shall we go, my Queens and King?”

The Four—Four once again, and Susan had forgotten how easy it was to walk in a group, to be a perfectly matched part, no matter if she was older than Peter now. She wondered, with a shrinking spirit, if she’d have the courage to call once they reached the garden, to willingly give this up—but that was a bridge to be faced when they arrived. Not now. She had this second, as the Four made their way downstairs. Edmund opened the door, bowing them into the small garden with its hedges holding muted pink and pure white flowers. Susan waited till the shut the door behind them. This. This was the moment. The moment—

And she had strength enough for this moment. Not for the next, but for this. She could call, and the Doorkeeper would give her strength for the next moment, if needed. Or Aslan would.

So many things, she knew, she was given the strength for only in the very moment of their doing.

She lifted her hands away from her sides, palms up, and called with a clear voice, “I seek the door that opens, the path that leads to a dwelling beyond worlds.” 

Peter came to her right, Edmund to her left, and she saw Lucy take her place beyond. They stood in a row, eldest to youngest, the three waiting as they saw Susan wait.

The air before them rippled, the light in it bending and flickering. The light grew white, thickening and shining within a circle, starting from the ground and reaching to just below Peter’s head. Susan let her hands fall to her sides, and the white light grew black. A moment later a head popped out of it. The head was covered in thick, close-cut curly brown hair interspersed with grey, and the sharp grey eyes were covered by very thick glasses with square golden frames.

“This is  _ most _ irregular,” an annoyed voice declared. “I was just in the middle of letting the Merlion meet with Ransom in 1945*, and then I get  _ this _ call. Haven’t I enough today without being a personal chauff—” 

He broke off, staring at Susan. “Forgive me, but aren’t you out of time?”

“Out of my own time, yes.” She kept her voice calm. To be back with her siblings was a gift beyond calculating, but to have her future companion not know her opened a new pain. 

The Doorkeeper frowned, an odd sight for a head floating in a black circle. “That was most irresponsible of you. ‘Tis never wise, and humans especially make a frightful muddle. The only ones worse than them are mermaids. If you’re trying to set your sorrow aside—but you wouldn’t, would you? Yes, I can see it now. You’re a Walker.”

Susan did not answer. That was something she did not wish her siblings to know, and so she did not meet the three questioning glances that she knew were sent her way. The burden she bore would weigh on her siblings all the heavier, if they knew its full weight. Also, there were few who should know the day they would die. 

“How did you get here?” The Doorkeeper demanded abruptly

“I was being sent to—the Merlion’s charge. But the door became a crack, and suddenly I was sitting in the house behind me, in another’s time.”

The head sighed, and two hands emerged on the sides of the circle, grabbing them as the Doorkeeper pulled himself forward. His jacketed shoulders emerged first, followed by the rest of him, clad in a comfortable and functional suit that fit his thin body as if tailored for it. Susan teased him about in the future, asking him where he got clothing that never wrinkled, stained, or tore. He had merely glared at her then. She did not dare take that liberty now, however much she wished to amuse her siblings. To hear them laugh again. 

The Doorkeeper dusted his hands, and the darkness behind him shrunk instantly to a pin-prick before vanishing. “Well, if that’s the case, accident or not, you were meant to be here. You’ll figure out why soon enough, if you’re a Walker. In the meantime, we must work on getting you back.” He pulled his pocketwatch out, and Susan glanced over at Lucy, smiling when her eyes got big; hers and Edmund’s both. The pocketwatch was made from a single sapphire, studded with diamonds like stars in a sky. The Doorkeeper snapped it open, scowled at it, and snapped it shut again. “But I cannot attend to this immediately. 1945 doesn’t wait on 1948’s problems.** I shall be back.” He reached into the open air and pulled as if he were pulling a doorknob. The air rippled again, and he passed through, vanishing instantly. A moment later the air cleared. 

There was a pause.

“Was that the impatient companion?” Lucy asked, and Susan smiled affectionately.

“That was one of the two I walk with.” 

“Ones you walk with,” Edmund repeated, and Susan felt her smile fade. 

_ I must be careful _ , she thought, and suddenly felt sick.  _ Be careful. Once I would have told them anything; my burdens were theirs, and theirs were mine. Aslan, what have I done, that I must be careful? This—this is my fault. _ She swallowed, trying to steady her stomach. 

“Inside,” Peter instructed, and Susan felt his arm under hers. She swallowed one more time and turned with him, only to freeze. She was a Walker, and she felt the presence of another door being opened. She turned her head to the left, looking above the knee-high hedges. There. There, a door was opening—no, not a door, for the air didn’t ripple but spun. This was a window, and she moved to stand before it.

Peter’s hand still gripped her elbow, and Edmund sprung to her other side. She knew Lucy would be tense and ready as well. 

They may not bear her burdens, but already her brokenness made them wary of any threats to her. She did not—she was thankful for it, but she did not know how to tell them she was both much frailer and much stronger than she had been. And few things that would threaten her came through windows made with such skill.

For it was within seconds that the air cleared into a moving picture. She saw the Doorkeeper, looking in exasperation at his feet, where the younger Susan lay sprawled. He looked up at the three other siblings’ exclamations.

“She is merely sleeping,” he dismissed impatiently. “She’ll be fine, stop worrying already. But,” he added to Susan, “she is utterly useless as a Walker” and  _ why, oh why, did they both have to keep referring to that title tonight, _ “and we shall get nothing done till you are back. Where did you land?”

“England, my house, in 1948.” The Doorkeeper’s eyes went wide. Susan hesitated, reluctant to admit to making a complicated situation any worse—and it  _ was _ complicated, if it took her mentor by surprise, for so little did—but she straightened her spine, reminding herself that the truth  _ mattered _ . She had learned that lesson, burned it like a brand on all the temptations to see what she wished instead of what was. But it was still hard, back where she was safe, not to let responsibility fall on other shoulders. “I called to the you in this time,” she confessed softly. 

“You—do you  _ realise _ how that complicates matters? Two of me cannot exist in the same sphere, ever. And now I shall have new memories to deal with, once I get home. You have  _ seen _ the notebook I use to note every place I have ever visited—”

Susan had, it was organised by the size of the door, the year, the month, the week, the day, the second, and then the world, each visit written in neat microscopic print. She’d refused to touch it, it was so complicated.

“—and if you’ve called him—but you could not have known I’d find you so quickly, so perhaps that made sense, but do you realise how hard this will be? I can’t even speak with him on what went wrong without breaking England off of every other door frame!”

“Perhaps you could give us the information you need to pass on and we could be your messengers,” Peter said evenly. Susan exhaled inaudibly. It was like him to protect her from the scolding, but she did not truly need it.

“You could not speak the language the explanation is in,” the Doorkeeper said testily. “But it was a good thought, young man,” he said a moment later. “Hmmm. I see where she gained her strength, our Walker. I shall attend to solutions and open another window when I find something. Do stay out of trouble till then. And Susan,” Susan looked up at the warning in his tone, “what has been set in motion may not be stopped.”

Susan covered her face with her hands. “I know,” she whispered, and felt the air become the heavy, cool air of an English garden again. Lucy’s arms came around her waist, and Susan let her hands fall from her face to hug Lucy back. 

She could not change the future, but she could hold the present with all her strength.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Kudos to you if you recognise this reference. I used the publishing date, by the way, because I couldn’t remember the specific one.   
> **To clarify the years: 1957 is when Susan is 29, where she lives now. 1948 is the place in time she went back to, when she’s 20. 1945 is where the Doorkeeper was when she called him.


	3. Questions Answered

Susan took a deep breath and let Lucy go, looking to the others.

Peter smiled wryly. “I have not been called a young man by a magical being in quite some time. Interesting company you keep these days, Su.”

“And interesting places you travel to.” That was Edmund’s thoughtful tone— _ another thing she had not heard in eight years _ —and she had to keep his attention away. Without letting him know what she was doing; it was perhaps a blessing that she knew them better than they now knew her.

_ Oh, Aslan, that still hurts to remember _ .

But—she had to distract Edmund. 

“I have always kept interesting company, my King. Whether they were interesting to  _ you _ is of no consequence.” She put on her haughtiest tone, and was rewarded with his delighted laugh. 

She could hear a little of his own healing in the sound.  _ Aslan, have mercy, will I be allowed to be a Walker to my own siblings, to heal a little of their hurts? To do for them what I have done for others? _

_ Oh, that would be worth… worth any pain. _

_ Please, please, let it be so. _

“I think this companion is of interest to all of us,” and that was Lucy, smiling too. “He seems… a bit like Trumpkin.”

“If Trumpkin believed himself a higher authority than us, perhaps,” Susan sighed.

“He did at the beginning. Remember, Peter? We had to challenge him to two separate duels, and Lucy had to heal his shoulder with her cordial, before he accepted our authority.”

“Would your Gentle Highness permit us to challenge this authoritarian to duels as well, to teach him of your authority? And perhaps Lucy could heal his hurts afterwards, with our own English medicine,” Peter asked mock-solemnly. Susan shook her head, not without a smile for the Doorkeeper’s imagined reaction to such a challenge.

But they would have done it. In an instant, if she asked it of them.

“He is better left alone; he comes back happier. And this is a problem made for him; he will enjoy the challenge. We should face our own challenges—where am I to stay?”

“In your own room,” Lucy answered at once. “We can tell Mom you had a headache and didn’t feel well, but that I took care of you. She’ll be tired enough coming back from Carla’s that she’ll accept that, at least for tonight.”

Susan swallowed, nodding. It was a sound plan. But—to stay in that room, with all of them alive, so close but out of sight and sound, when she may not have very long left—

She was not sure she could bear losing a moment of this gift.

“Where would you like to stay?” asked the quiet voice of her younger brother.

“Lucy, I know I never did this when I was twenty, but please—can I stay with you?”

“Of course!” and Lucy’s face beamed with joy. 

_ Lucy’s face had shone with joy even after death. _ Susan had always wondered if she had seen Aslan; this was Lucy  _ living _ , though only for a few more months—

_ Aslan, must that joy be extinguished? _

_ Not extinguished, that is, if she is in Aslan’s country, it’s made more perfect there, but…  _

_ Extinguished from  _ _ my _ _ life. _

_ Aslan, can I face this loss again? _

_ I can’t, I can’t, it’s, I’m not— _

_ I feel as if I cannot even move. _

“I’ll bring tea to Lucy’s room,” Peter offered, catching Susan’s elbow and steering her inside. She let him guide her, to lead her when she could not find the will to move. His fingers were tight, though they did not hurt her. Susan wondered how much of her pain was written on her face. It was an asset to a Walker, to be so clearly marked by sorrow, but not… not now.

She was not a Walker now.

She was a sister, and,  _ for all she had done when she was twenty _ , she did not want her griefs to become theirs. 

Peter’s hands were setting her down, down on Lucy’s bed, and Lucy curled up at her side, clinging close like she hadn’t since they’d wondered if their brothers were coming home in Narnia. 

Lucy was warm, small against Susan’s twenty-nine-year-old body, and strong.  _ Indestructible _ , Susan would have said once. 

Susan had been wrong about many things. 

A cup of tea was placed in her hands, hands Susan absently realised were shaking. Peter’s strong grip curled her fingers around it, holding them in place, till he was sure she could hold it.

“Should we do anything?” she heard him ask in a low tone. Probably to her. No, not to her. It would have been once, in Narnia, but not here. Not now, not when she was twenty, nor when she was twenty-nine and he was dead.

“Give her a moment,” came Edmund’s equally quiet response. “It is a difficult thing to go from being alone to being loved; and it is a harder thing to accept the forgiveness that allows for such a gift.”

“I wish Aslan were here,” came Lucy’s softly-spoken longing. 

_ Aslan _ . The second wish Susan held in her heart; for though she had heard His voice, so very few times, she had not seen His face since Narnia. “Me too, Lucy,” she whispered. 

And the Four of them sat, united in their desire, and in the memory of the One they all served. 

Susan lifted the glass teacup to her lips, drinking in the tea—the kind Peter once made, strong enough to keep a University student awake through the night. Susan nearly coughed it out. 

“Oh, sorry—I keep meaning to learn to make it different, but I always think the tea leaves can stay in just a bit longer-” and Peter’s hands caught the glass and tugged. Susan looked up, smiling. 

“It was just what I needed,” she said softly, holding on. The smile she remembered—the one of pride, that he had done what was needed, and done it well—slowly spread over his face, and he let the cup go. 

“How long are you staying?” Edmund asked. Susan took one more sip, easing it this time, and set the cup back down noiselessly. 

“I do not know.”

“You’re out often enough in the evenings, and you often sleep through breakfast, but Mum will expect to see you every few days during lunch. Maybe we can give a glimpse—you heading out the door in your coat—”

Susan nodded, keeping the muscles of her face still. She had not worn that coat—pure white, an expensive birthday present from all her family, and exquisite in its elegance—since she’d gone to the train station in it, that last time. She had never been able to wash it, to remove the soot, and that small bloodstain on the sleeve—

She hadn’t been able. But she would wear it again, unblemished, if she had to. 

“We can bring you food,” Lucy added thoughtfully.

“And there’s always the tree outside the window if you’ve got to get out with Mum or Dad coming up,” Peter finished, and Susan began to smile. He had a challenge in his eyes, and the Walker she was rose to meet it as the girl she had been would not have.

“If you are sure the branches will hold me, it will be a welcome escape in case of emergency.”

“Oh, he’s quite sure. He tested it out himself, going to get you from Clive’s when Mum and Dad were sleeping and you weren’t home yet,” Edmund put in dryly, and Susan’s smile grew a little more forced. 

“Then I will use it as needed.” She brought her good humor back to the fore, pulling up memories prior to the time when Peter needed to fetch her from where she should not be. “Thank you for attending to my safety, Peter,” she added softly. 

He nodded, his own eyes scanning her face. She left it open.

Which was no doubt Edmund’s intention, for at that moment he observed, in his quietest, gentlest voice, “Merlion is an old, odd alteration of Merlin, one of many of the possible misspellings of it.”

“Merlion?” Lucy asked, quick to catch on. “Was that—the Doorkeeper said he was bringing Merlin back? In  _ 1945? _ He came back 3 years ago? Why didn’t anyone notice? Why weren’t any of us  _ told!? _ ”

“I doubt it was the first priority at your school; they stick to large events,” Edmund shot back, but his eyes hadn’t left Susan’s face. “Merlin may have more work to do, but I doubt all of England will know what that work is or was, till King Arthur comes back. King Arthur,” he finished, “who is Merlion’s charge.”

Susan met his eyes calmly. He could guess all he wanted—and he might be, as he so infuriatingly often was, right—but that did not mean she had to answer him. 

He saw that in her face, apparently, for he smiled ruefully. “I’m a bit jealous, perhaps,” he admitted. “You can’t tell us?”

Susan hesitated, and Edmund’s face fell.

She  _ hated _ that.

She’d made it fall so often, with her careless cruelty, her betrayal. She had to give him something now. 

“I can tell you about visiting him. Or at least that I was going to. But Edmund, you’re far too good at guessing, and there are things I  _ can’t _ tell you. Things you shouldn’t guess.”

“Why?” And it wasn’t Edmund who was asking, it was Peter, with all the patience and all the  _ authority _ he carried, and Susan felt torn, between the authority given to her now—in the future, and the loyalties she had then, now, in this place—under him.

“Because what I am now is the result of my choices,” she said—and if the bitterness was lessened from those first months, that  _ year _ , the taste of it still touched the tip of her tongue and slipped into the words. “And they have always been my choices, Peter. I have to bear the consequences of them.”

“That is not always true,” and that was Edmund, grave and unmoving. “I did not bear the consequences of mine. Can we not lift some of the consequences of yours—or help you to change them?”

Susan laughed, though her eyes filled. “No, you didn’t, but Edmund, at the same time, you  _ did _ bear some consequences. You were tied to a tree, claimed by her voice, and pierced by her sword.” She met his eyes, reminding him of the memories they both had. “And we’re not told what would have happened if you’d made other choices, I know, we heard that over and over. But if you had made other choices you wouldn’t be the same person you are now. I am—there’s choices I’m making now, here, at 20 years old, that change me. For worse, and then later for better. Irrevocable choices. And what I’m doing at 29, it’s not… it’s not  _ forever _ . I’ve been promised that. But I do have to live with the choices I made, and who they made me to be. How they left me alone,” and her voice caught on the word, for it hit her so hard, sitting surrounded by her siblings, their hands on her arms, their eyes on her face, their  _ love _ all around her, and yet she was alone. She had a calling and a title they would never have to bear, that she had to bear  _ alone _ . She cleared her throat, willing the tears to fall and take the gasping pain with them, as they had so often before. 

“What is a Walker?”

Susan turned to look at Lucy, who’d asked the question with furrowed eyebrows but clear faith in her eyes.

“It’s—who I am now. The consequences of my choice broke me in ways that… cannot be reversed. But grief isn’t worthless in Aslan’s paws, and it remade me into someone who can… can speak to the utterly broken, and give them hope. Sometimes. Sometimes all I can bring is the hand on theirs as they break, but even that is a gift not forgotten.”

“And your choices brought the grief that taught you the comfort,” Edmund added slowly. Susan nodded. 

“As your choices brought the offense that taught you justice and mercy. They are choices that I must make now, at twenty—because they are mine, and there is no other way I can learn this. ”

“Is there nothing we can do, to help you?” Peter asked quietly. Susan shook her head.

“Yes, there is,” Lucy said suddenly, fiercely, scrambling off the bed and towards her dresser. She rummaged around in it, reaching to the far back, and when she pulled her hand out a slender chain of gold draped off one side. She stood in front of Susan and held it out.

Susan looked at it silently. On her nineteenth birthday, Lucy had offered her a necklace, one with a simple golden crown hanging from the chain—a beautiful circlet that would barely fit around Susan’s smallest finger, and very like the crown she’d had in Narnia. Susan had refused it emphatically, telling Lucy “It’s a pretty thing, but quite outdated now.” She’d added, “Thank you for thinking of me,” when she saw the hurt on Lucy’s face, but it had not been enough for the truth-loving Queen, and she’d rushed out of the room. She had not offered it to Susan again. 

“Lucy, I’m sor—”

“Take it now. I kept it. I kept it in the drawer, and every time things hurt beyond bearing, I took it out and reminded myself you might come back. I thought I might be able to give it to you again.” Lucy laid it on Susan’s lifting hand, smiling as she saw the gold against Susan’s fair skin. “And now I have. I won’t need to keep it anymore, because I  _ know _ you will come back.” 

“And it will remind you of her,” Peter added, standing. He took the ring off his finger, the one with a lion’s head staring out from the band. Susan had commissioned it, working as a saleswoman in a jewelry store all summer in exchange for it. He had worn it every day since, though Susan hated to see it at twenty, and was glad when it disappeared. Peter added the heavier ring to the golden chain laying across her hand. “As you walk alone, remember He is with you. And if you are a friend of Narnia, you are its Queen. You are and will always be. Just as we are.”

Susan was crying again—she should have had more tea, she thought—as Edmund took her hands. “I do not often wear gold,” he said, “but I do wear these.” And he took the pin off the shirt he was wearing, a silver pin in the shape of an open book. “Remember you are forgiven, you are loved, and He is faithful,” he said as he strung it on the chain as well. He stood, lifting the ends of the chain, and reached it behind her to fasten it for her. “Take these as you walk, and  _ remember _ ,” he said as he finished. 

“Is now a bad time?” another voice asked abruptly. “Because I found out what went wrong.”


	4. Creating a Door

This news from the now-swirling window, while startling them, was most welcome. Welcome to all but Susan, who dreaded it.

The instant the four turned towards the rippling air, it immediately started shrinking. “Bother!” the Doorkeeper fussed. “The other me is coming, it’s in the notebook—we can’t be both here at once—tell him you stood by a grandfather’s clock!” His voice stopped with a snap, and a black square began to grow on the opposite wall. It grew from the size of a book to the size of a door within moments. Susan hastily wiped her eyes, dropped the hanging necklace within her shirt, and stood up. 

A moment later the younger Doorkeeper walked through the wall, looked about the room, nodded at the door to the hallway, scowled at the window, and then turned to address the four. “I think the problem must have been at your end-” he began, but Susan cut him off with a polite nod.

“Indeed. The Doorkeeper of my time said to inform you I stood by a grandfather clock?”

Her friend groaned. “Oh, this turns worse and worse. Do sit down, for we must go over every second—every second, you understand, for time goes into doors just as much as space does, and if the grandfather’s clock chimed the time—what do you remember, my dear? No, you don’t like that, do you?  _ Dear _ isn’t your chosen title. What is it, then? What do I call you?”

“Queen,” Edmund responded. 

Susan flinched. Edmund was not wrong, the Doorkeeper—her Doorkeeper—often called her Aslan’s Queen. But Susan couldn’t help wondering if Edmund could see that in her clearly now, or if he was remembering who she was. 

“Queen. Hmmm. Well, you’re certainly that. Now, as I was saying, what do you remember?”

_ A necklace around my neck _ , Susan thinks but doesn’t say.  _ Brothers and a sister who would walk willingly into whatever broke me, just to make it better for me _ . 

“He had called the door—it had reached as high as my shoulders—and then the clock chimed.”

The Doorkeeper scowled, and began walking back and forth across the room, muttering. “Elementary mistake, I can’t think  _ how _ I missed such a thing like that—no, going back to a place with so many open doors, I would have been careful to eliminate—odd, the clock should not have chimed against the timing of the door—I say, Queen Walker, what hour did it chime?” he asked abruptly.

Susan thought back, recalling the white light, the sound striking beside her. “Seven o’clock, but I didn’t hear all the chimes. I think I heard… three. Only three.”

“A clock out of time, and that cracked the frame, and once the frame was cracked—and you’re strong enough it would have aligned to your heart, not his head, the bother of being a Doorkeeper and not a Walker! Well, and he knows all this?” 

Susan, used to his abrupt turns, answered serenely (keeping her eyes away from Edmund, who, she knew, would probably have the corners of his mouth turning up), “I believe so. We did not have time to hear more than his instructions to tell you about the clock.”

“Well, if he pinpointed the problem, he would have set it back to its time. Now we just must get you back to yours. And you back to yours as well, of course. Is she likely to help?”

Susan, interpreting this correctly to mean her 20-year-old self, still took a moment to brace herself.

One night was more than she had ever dreamed of getting, but one night—not even that, just  _ hours _ —how could she give this up? How could she walk away?

“You did not expect to stay longer, did you?” And his tone was gentle. 

“I hoped,” Susan admitted, for there were times he felt like her confessor as well as her guardian in the passageways between worlds. And her three siblings moved closer.

“To have a person outside of their time, however well-intentioned, is not wise. You know that by now.”

Susan swallowed. She could not discuss this and still go through with it, so she turned her mind to the solution, refusing to think about the consequences of it enough for her heart to fear. “It is unlikely my younger self will be of any help.”

The Doorkeeper sighed. “Then I’ll keep well away from her, till I’m sent. Till I’m sent, mind you. But in the meantime, we send you through by cracking a door here, too. Do you have a door you don’t care for?” he asked Peter, the oldest in the room. 

The High King blinked. “No—I think our parents care for all of them,” he said slowly, thinking through the doors in the house.

“Then I shall just have to make one. Come along, Queen.” He turned, walked right into the door to the hallway, and glared at it. 

“It’s one of the ones you have to open,” Susan said gravely. 

“Doesn’t he have to open all of them?” Edmund asked, sotto voice.

“Not in the far future, far beyond where I live,” Susan whispered back, watching Edmund’s eyes light up in wonder. The Doorkeeper yanked open the door, and the Pevensies trailed after him.

_ I can do this, _ Susan reminded herself.  _ This is right. I can—I can leave this, I can go… back— _

_ I can’t do this _ . 

She felt the necklace, heavy around her neck. It meant nothing compared to Lucy’s hand in hers, Peter’s arm holding her up. 

_ How can I do this? _

She stayed silent as the Doorkeeper wandered around their yard, looking at the five trees, dismissing one as “too small,” muttering “too young,” at another, “ash trees are most unhelpful, they don’t  _ open _ ,” at the twin trees on either side of the path, and glaring at the fifth. “You’ll have to do,” he sighed, reaching into his breast pocket and pulling out a handkerchief. 

Susan knew what he was going to do—he had done it once before, when he came to where Susan dwelt in Bath, and she had watched him as avidly as her siblings were watching him now. Lucy’s eyes sparkled with wonder, and Edmund’s mouth twitched with amusement as they watched him dust the tree carefully, running the white fabric through every crack in the bark that faced them. 

Given the choice, she would trade all her knowledge, of worlds, times, people, and patience, just to keep sight of that sparkle, that smile, that sense of Peter on her left. All of it. Always, in less time than it took the Doorkeeper to open the door.

_ But it has never been my choice _ .  _ Aslan, Aslan, I knew when I knelt to You that I acknowledged authority to disregard my choices, but this— _

_ How can You require this of me? To let them go again…  _

_ No, I cannot say You are cruel. I have seen You turn sorrow to strength, even to praise, too many times for that. But I am not sure if I can survive giving them up twice. How can you ask it of me? _

There was no answer. Walkers knew that silence often meant a coming answer, but just now Susan, with her siblings, was not a Walker, nor even a Queen. She was a girl about to lose everything for the second time, and it made it hard to breathe.

Peter and Edmund noticed, one on either side. Two hands slid through her arms, two shoulders pressed into hers, and  _ it made it still harder _ , for she wouldn’t have this, in just moments, if the Doorkeeper succeeded—

“Who is the gardener here?” the Doorkeeper asked, and Susan could tell by the stiffness of his arms that he was frowning, even with his back to them.

“I do most of the gardening now,” Lucy answered, stepping forward. Susan closed her eyes. In this moment, in this garden, Lucy once again moved as a regal queen, not as a young girl. The Doorkeeper motioned her forward with one hand, still gazing steadfastly at the tree. 

“Do tell your tree to cooperate with me, then, there’s a—no, you’re not a  _ dear _ either. You’re a Queen as well?” he asked sharply, turning his head with an owl-like movement to regard her with his unblinking eyes. 

“Yes.” Lucy reached forward, leaning into the tree with one swift touch. “Will it hear me? I did not think English trees had Dryads.”

“Well, not  _ hear _ you, not like a Dryad would, but English trees—look here, I must call you something, and she can be Queen Walker, or will be, but you—hmmm. Courage? No, not quite. Never mind, I don’t think we meet again. Not here, at any rate. Bother. Noting this place shall be quite difficult, you know, but I suppose if I came to find the Queen Walker in later years I brought it on myself. Someone with a history as complicated as hers is—goodness gracious, how the doors must bend around her!—would definitely make things more interesting than I care to experience. But all of the best people in the world—in any world—often have that quality, of making even the ordinary, daily things so important they are beautiful and true. And that is what you have done with gardening. Therefore the trees, even without Dryads, lean in and listen, from their roots to the veins in their leaves. So do tell it to stop being such stubborn wood and let me make a door in it; I’ll be quite sure to close it again. It would  _ not do _ to have a door open here, with those who have already been in more than one world.” A tiny shudder twitched from one shoulder to the other, and Susan’s mind revisualised the moment of terror when a dark, looming creature had found her just inside one door. It did not help her breathing.

She closed her eyes, listening. Listening to the wind rustling the leaves of the tree that would be the door to take her back. Listening to Peter and Edmund breathing— _ the breaths that would cease in a year's time _ . Shoving that thought away, Susan listened to the Doorkeeper, letting herself fall back into memories of practicality, fussiness, and the good heart underneath, the one that bore hundreds on hundreds of duties and never faltered. And Lucy, leaning forward to whisper to the tree.

“Please let me sister go home,” she requested, her voice as soft as the leaves rustling. “We do not want her to leave, but it’s where she belongs, and we must do all we can to help her.” 

“There, that’s done it,” the Doorkeeper said in satisfaction. Susan brought her hands up to grip her brothers’ arms.  _ She could not do this. _

“Susan,  _ breathe _ ,” Edmund demanded urgently. 

Susan took a deep breath, the night air filling her lungs and stomach. Another hand, large and smelling of dusty books, pressed the side of her face. She opened them to see the Doorkeeper standing a foot away, his arm extended to center her and bring her back. 

“I think, Queen Walker, that you need my other self here,” he said kindly. He let go of her face and pulled out his notebook, opening it and unfolding one page. Susan smiled helplessly, tears filling her eyes, as he unfolded the page into something the size of a world parchment map, pulling out a pencil to scribble on it. Edmund beside her leaned forward, entranced by how such a large page folded into a tiny notebook, and in the miniscule, neat print that covered it in dates and places. The Doorkeeper folded it over one arm, writing in a long note right above his wrist. He folded it back in a few swift motions and tucked pencil and notebook back in his jacket pocket. “I shall make the door and leave,” he informed Susan in his instructor’s voice. “You should say your goodbyes before my self returns.” 

Her brothers’ hands tightened, and Lucy came back to circle Susan’s waist. The four watched as the Doorkeeper walked back to the tree, taking a small hammer from one pocket and tapping the tree gently in a square. Then he put the hammer away and brought out a long slender spike, with which he tapped the center of the square three times. Though the spike did not enter the wood, the wood cracked, splintering from the ground to the top of the square. Within the crack shone white-grained wood, and in a thin line at the center of the wood ran a blackness that drifted slowly, undulating in waves. The spike was also returned to his bottomless pocket, and he straightened up. “I shall see you in… when it is time, Queen Walker.” Susan nodded, though it made the water fall from her eyes, and watched as he walked around the tree and vanished. 

“Susan, sit,” Peter commanded once more, his voice soft but strong. Their hands lowered her to the ground. She covered her face, feeling the cold, hard dirt and grass beneath and her siblings kneeling around her. 


	5. Thy Will Be Done

None of her siblings knew what to say. None of them were Walkers, but even Walkers, Susan knew, found themselves wordless at times. 

_Grief does not always have an answer_. 

_Aslan_ . _The time has come for goodbye, and I do not have the strength for it. I am not strong enough to lose them again._

Lucy’s arms wormed around her neck. Susan grabbed her and pulled her close, crying— _once again, but only for now, for this moment_ —in a sibling’s shoulder. “I can’t leave,” she whispered brokenly. “I don’t—I know I had to make these choices, I still believe that, but I cannot bring myself to leave.”

Lucy’s hands lifted her face up, wiping away the tears. “It’s not forever,” she said, with that stubborn, valiant faith. “You will see us again.”

“But how does that help me _now?_ ” Susan cried. “Lucy, I cannot walk back into this sorrow of my own will, holding on to nothing but _some day_.”

Lucy had no answer. 

“Oh, Aslan’s Queen, you already know the answer to that,” a voice said. The tone was kinder than the other Doorkeeper’s had been, and as Susan’s companion walked around the tree, a giant, silent hound pacing by his side, Susan looked to the face that had helped her through unendurable duties before. The two companions halted a pace away from the children on the ground. He looked at the ground, sighed, and sat, allowing his jacket and pants to rumple. The grey-haired hound curled up beside him, his head on his paws, and his dark, wise eyes fixed on the four siblings who were all smaller than he was. The eyes held a sorrow that often matched Susan’s own. The sharing of her pain, of another heart that felt a loss like hers, allowed her to breathe. And to reply.

“I cannot remember the answer now.” But she let her fingers loosen from around her brothers’ hands, holding rather than clutching. 

“Go back to the answer you found after your first task,” the Doorkeeper replied, and Susan closed her eyes. There was a door that never opened, but one with words written on it, words that would read in whatever language the reader spoke. They told of a man, wise, blameless, and holy, kneeling in agony till his sweat turned to blood. 

And He had prayed what Susan’s soul begged for.

“Let this cup pass from me,” she whispered, half memory, half plea.

“Yes, but that is not where it ends.”

Susan opened her eyes. “ _I cannot_ do this. I _cannot_ walk away; it would be like walking through death again _._ ” Edmund started, his clever eyes shifting to hers. She met his horrified gaze. _No_ , she thought _, he assumes_ **_I_ ** _died—that they lost me fully—and somehow I came back._ She shook her head, trying to reassure him. But how could she, when she could not tell him what happened?

_I know to the soul of me that staying here would only cause them harm, as my knowledge cuts into their ignorance. Ways like this._

_But how can I leave?_

_You prayed more than “let this cup pass from me.” I cannot._

“And what of her?” The Doorkeeper rose to his feet, gesturing to the Hound’s back, and Susan saw the arm of her sleeping younger self there. One hand of Peter’s stayed on her arm, but the other was already reaching out, reaching to the sister who would not accept him. Two of them, one broken, one breaking him—and he would hold them both, if he could.

Lucy’s and Edmund’s attentions were on her too, the twenty-year old sleeping on the back of a dog she would deny. 

They loved her then, when she did not deserve it. She could feel how they wanted _both_ , to stay with her and to check on her sleeping form feet away.

She could not deny them. Gathering herself, taking in a breath, she rose to her feet. All four of them could see Susan, still asleep. Edmund took a step forward. 

Susan let his hand go. He paused, looking back to her, a question on his face.

“Go to her,” Susan responded, though her voice was breaking. “She needs—just go, Edmund.” She strengthened her voice, calling back the authority she had as Queen, speaking with the tone that let him know she meant the words. “Go to her.” 

Edmund went. Susan watched him leaving, watched him step away, walk to an arm’s length, then out of reach. Her brother, out of her reach. Going where God would send him. “ _Your will be done_ ,” she whispered, tears falling down her face. 

Her brother, moving away, walked with firm steps, went fearlessly towards the giant hound with human eyes. He had weighed the awesome animal with a single glance and set one gentle hand on its head in passing. A commendation, a friendship given and accepted in an instant.

_Huan will miss him, too, after this. The friendship of an instant, lost mere minutes later. Aslan, have both of us not lost enough? Why give us both something more to lose?_

 _Because even if we regain it in the end, we lose it for now. And that_ _hurts_ _._

Edmund reached up for his sister, gently pulling her off. She slid down the hound’s side, still sleeping, and he caught her, taking a moment to reposition her arms and legs so he could carry her. Then he turned, back towards his siblings.

The Judge carrying the traitor, his hands holding the blind, helpless sinner in mercy.

_Oh, Edmund. This is when you learned to be gentler, wasn’t it? To keep holding on, no matter how I hurt you. My coming back did this—you can love her fearlessly now._

_This is Aslan’s will being done._

And it hurt, it _hurt_ to see her younger, senseless self sheltered while Susan stood separated from her brother. It hurt like the darker nights when Susan could not stop wishing she had perished at that train station too. 

But the Walker in her recognised the light. The beauty of the love bestowed on the unlovable. 

She let her hand rest on Lucy’s head for a moment. The soft golden hair, the child trained into a Valiant Queen, the _joy_ of heart that Susan lacked. 

_And I have to send it away._

_Aslan, is it not enough that I lose them again? Why do I have to be the one who bids them go?_

_You walked to Your death. You were the one who had to lay Your own life down._

_I have followed You across worlds and times; though I do not see how I can walk this road, I will follow You now._

“Lucy, go help him,” Susan said. But the pain in her heart strained her tone, and Lucy shook her head.

“Susan-”

“Lucy, _please_.” She let go of Peter’s hand to hold her sister’s face with both hands. “You are the greatest bringer of joy I have ever met, aside from Aslan Himself. I love you with all I am; even the shallow girl over there, back when I shredded myself till little of me was left, even then I loved you. But-” her voice broke. “But Aslan-” 

_Aslan, I cannot do this._

“Aslan gave me _this_ sister,” Lucy responded. “It isn’t fair,” she couldn’t help but add. Susan laughed, though her eyes continued welling up. 

“I have learned that if life were fair, we would never have met Aslan.” She met Lucy’s eyes. “I would certainly never have met Him the second time, after refusing to believe He came to us during Prince Caspian’s reign. And a third time, years ago, would be unheard of.” She leaned forward, resting her forehead on Lucy’s with her eyes closed. “I love you,” she whispered. “Then, and now. Go where Aslan calls you, and Lucy,” she swallowed, trying to keep her voice calm—this was so much _harder_ than any other task she’d done as a Walker; this was her own heart—“please keep that joy. Please.” 

She felt two smaller hands reach up and hold her own face. She opened her eyes to see Lucy gazing gravely at her. “You do the same,” her younger sister said. “Aslan is with us both, and where He is, there will be joy.” She wiped away Susan’s fresh tears with her thumbs. 

“I will try,” Susan promised. Lucy kissed her, turned, and walked towards Edmund. 

“ _Not mine, but Your will be done_.” Susan choked the words out, but she meant them, meant them as she watched Lucy walk to Susan with a calm air. Lucy had her hope fulfilled now, hope a certainty. She would not have any more of those darker nights.

Susan would. But Susan would rather she had them than Lucy. 

And Susan had brought this on herself. Seeing herself in her brother’s arms, asleep because she could no longer handle living in other worlds, hammered that home. 

She had one sibling left now, one hand wrapped around her arm. 

Peter, who stood silently, waiting for her to speak. 

“Peter-”

“You do not walk alone.”

Susan’s head spun around, staring at her other brother. He picked up one hand, sliding his other arm down till he held both her hands. “They are not us, Susan. I do not know what happened, and I do not think I am to know. But those two walk with you, Susan. And they care for you. Do not forget that.” 

His words were firm, his stance set, and his eyes calm. He meant it, he knew it, and Susan felt herself crumbling to fall onto his strength.

“Peter, I _can’t_ do this. They’re not _you_ , not _Edmund_ , not _Lucy_ ! I can’t lose you again, I can’t—even if I’m not alone, I have still lost _so much_.” 

“It will be given back to you again.” He reached forward and held her, letting her cry one more time on his shoulder. “One step at a time. _One battle at a time_ ,” he whispered, the words bringing back the times they had faced enemies too numerous for them to win, on campaigns long and hard.

Each campaign had ended, eventually. 

If they had stopped—if they had refused to fight, too weary, too discouraged—the war would have been lost, and the way to victory that much harder and longer. 

“I will keep fighting,” she promised him. In the shelter of his arms she stood straighter, breathed deeper. She asked for the strength to stay tall when he walked away. 

“I love you,” Peter said suddenly, his arms tightening. “Aslan has given me more than I asked for, to know that though you are no friend now, in this year, you will be again. Thank you, Susan, for that priceless gift.” 

Oh, the kindness, the _hope_ in his voice, undid her. He was healing. She had heard it before, in strong people with a deep wound. 

She had wanted to be their Walker. Aslan let her do that. 

Now she just had to survive the task’s ending.

“I love you, Peter,” she breathed. He held her a moment longer, then let her go. He left his hands on her shoulders till he was certain she could stand. And then he smiled, sadly, at something behind her, and Susan felt a hand on one shoulder and a nose on the other. 

“We will care for her as best we can,” the Doorkeeper said from behind her. “Until the day she meets with you again.” Peter nodded, leaned forward, and gave her the kiss of the High King on her forehead. “Go with Aslan,” he commanded. He took his hands away slowly, but walked with firm steps to his other siblings. 

“Not my will, but Your will be done,” Susan whispered for the final time. She could not see for the tears. But she felt the Doorkeeper’s other hand shift her elbow, and with muscle memory she swung herself onto Huan. 

“Goodbye,” and “I love you,” sounded from three voices she knew better than any others, and then their echoes were cut off. Susan blinked, and saw to her right a grandfather clock. 

“We’ll take this task another time,” said the kind, professional voice to her left, and underneath her Huan rumbled in agreement. “In the meantime, I suggest you use that handkerchief you have stashed in your belt. 

Susan looked down and blinked. Lucy’s handkerchief—

And she started crying again. 

“Not all tears are evil,”* the Doorkeeper murmured. “Have a good cry, my dear. I shall be back in time.”

Susan slid down the hound, burying her face in his coat. He rumbled comfortingly, laying himself down so she could lean on him better, and she cried till she had no more tears left.

She had done so once before, at a Stone Table, weeping without hope. This time she fingered the necklace in one hand, Lucy’s handkerchief in the other, and wept in the hope of seeing them again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Quoted from Tolkien

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Please remember the Adventures in Narnia writing challenge! There’s a forum by that name on fanfiction.net if you would like more details, and it begins February 1st!


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